Correspondence and other papers of Joseph Sams and members of his family, consisting mostly of letters from Joseph Sams to his wife, Polly Ann Crawford Sams, during the Civil War years. A native of Madison County, N.C., Sams was in the minority of Confederate sympathizers from that part of the state. Sams's letters to his wife Polly chronicle his hopes and fears for the the Southern cause from his arrival in Raleigh in 1861 to his capture at Yazoo City, Miss., in 1863; they include references to Confederate activities at Camp Haynesville, Elizabethton, Jackson, Charleston, Morristown, and Shelbyville, Tenn., and at Yazoo City, Miss. Sams fought with the 64th and 29th North Carolina regiments. Also included are a ciphering book, dated 19 June 1820, of Robert Benson Crawford, Joseph Sams's father-in-law, and a few letters of other members of the Sams and Crawford families, including letters from H. T. (Henry?) Crawford, R. B. Crawford's son, a Confederate soldier at Dalton, Ga., and Greeneville, Tenn., in 1864 and 1865.
